


Sunshine

by Flowers_For_Flamingos



Category: That '70s Show
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-22
Updated: 2019-08-22
Packaged: 2020-09-23 20:38:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20346367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Flowers_For_Flamingos/pseuds/Flowers_For_Flamingos
Summary: Steven Hyde never has slept well. Partly because of his disaster of a home life, but also because of the nightmares that plague him regularly. They feel almost real, make him feel like these dreams could happen. But he doesn't want them to. Doesn't know what he'd do if they did.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so... Here we go. My first That 70's show fanfic. Jackie and Hyde have so much untapped potential and it makes me mad the writers never gave them that chance. Plus season 8 was just a big NO. 
> 
> Anyway, I adore the song "You are my Sunshine" and just thought this up the other day, because I love depressing stories for some reason.

Steven James Hyde never slept well.

Of course, looking at him you would have never guessed. Sure, sometimes he had some bags under his eyes. To be expected after late night circles.

Hyde never really remembered sleeping well.

When he was a kid, maybe 5 or 6, he would wake to the sounds of yelling. Screaming and fighting about nothing and everything. His mother and father would stand in various rooms throughout their cruddy house, not yet as destroyed as it would later be, and yell at each other. Hyde would sometimes listen as Edna called Bud a deadbeat and Bud would call Edna a whore.

They were both right, but that didn't make the yelling better.

He would take to covering his head with the pillows and blankets he had on top of his little matress. Humming made up songs to himself to try and keep out the horrible _crash_ as dishes were thrown around the house.

It was eerily quite after Bud left.

That didn't mean that Hyde slept any better. The few days of quite following his father's abandonment left him sweating in his small room. He didn't sleep at all.

That was the first time he met Eric. Maybe the reason they ever became friends. Hyde was so tired from staying up, waiting for something to happen, that he fell asleep at his desk.

He woke to Forman shaking him awake. "You okay?" He had asked. "You fell asleep two hours ago. School's over."

He never said why he was so tired, but he kind of thinks that Forman figured it out by himself. Especially after they walked to his house together.

It wasn't till a week later that Hyde wished he'd taken advantage of the silent nights.

His mom would come home drunk, more drunk than he had ever witnessed. Drunk and yelling and fists swinging. She'd hit him, hit him hard enough to bruse. She was drunk, but always knew not to hit him in obvious places. The _noticable_ places.

He never told Forman about that either, but Eric somehow knew that too.

He would stay with Eric as long as he could. He'd stay until Red came clomping down the stairs yelling, "Eric! Your friends better be out of my house in five seconds!"

It still wasn't long enough.

When he cried she hit him harder. Yelled that she had a no good, bastard of a son. That he was the reason for all her misfortunes. He sobbed in his bed that night. She had hurt him more than usual.

He never cried after that.

It slowly became less worse as Hyde figured out her schedule. What time was a good time to come home. Edna would be passed out on the couch and he'd sneak to his room, unscathed as long as he didn't wake her. He sometimes did.

Sleep still didn't come easy. He was safe from Edna's fists, but nightmares haunted him in her place.

He'd sometimes dream that she'd wake up, and had come to find him.

Other times Forman hated his guts. Never wanted to be his friend again. Didn't protect him from his mother's rage, and he was forced to go back home to her again.

Because that's what Eric was doing, protecting Hyde from Edna. Maybe Forman knew that too.

He spent a lot of nights at the Forman's. Sleepovers with him, Forman, and Kelso. Was nice not to have to go home, didn't stop the nightmares though.

As he got older, Hyde's nightmares seemed to get worse. The more people he befriended, the more he had to loose, the more nightmares took place. Red kicking him to the street, Kitty turning her back on him, Donna finding him repulsive, Kelso hating him forever.

It was one of the reasons he wanted to get his own room when he moved in with the Formans. He'd jerk awake from restless dreams, sometimes waking Eric in the process. He didn't want him to know. So he moved to the basement.

His worst nightmares were of Jackie.

They started off small, not so much nightmares as bad dreams. He'd see her in the basement and she'd ignore him. She wouldn't give him a kiss goodbye, instead she'd sneer at him. She'd hit him when he'd try and give her a kiss. He realise how much he'd miss her.

They slowly became worse the more he fell in love with her, and _man _was he in love with her.

He would sometimes dream that she left him, that she realised that he wasn't good enough for her and took off. Never even told him she was leaving. The dreams would be so real and so cold that he'd wake up with wetness on his cheeks and the desperate urge to call her and make sure she was still there.

Other times she never existed at all. Those were vivid, too. Jackie never existed and Hyde was in jail and never knew he was missing something, something that made him whole.

The worst ones were when he hurt her. Those were the ones that felt the most real. He'd dream they had some stupid argument and he'd gotten so worked up. And _SLAP! _it would happen, just like that. He'd hit her, he hadn't meant to.

The shock, the hurt, the _fear_ that came across her face made Hyde feel sick. _So_ sick. She'd back away as he apologized, reaching out to her. Tears would stream down her face and she shake her head, desperatly trying to keep him away.

She'd call him a monster. Scream for him to get away from her. To leave her alone.

The dream always ended the same way. His friends would come running in. Donna would tuck Jackie under her arm, Fez stood in front of her. Hyde kept trying to see around him, to tell Jackie he was sorry. Kelso had this look on his face, one that Hyde had never seen before on him, rage. He told Hyde to never come back. Then Eric punched him in the face.

Hyde would always jerk awake, the dream leaving him teary eyed, sweaty, and nauseous. Sometimes he would throw up.

When Jackie would spend the nights, the dreams weren't as frequent, but they still happened.

He'd calm down, pull her closer to him. Breath in the sweet smell of her hair and promise himself he wouldn't loose her. Couldn't loose her. Because if he did, he didn't know what he would become.


	2. Chapter 2

_It was late, and Steven Hyde was drunk. Royally so._

_The rain pounded his coatless back, he had left it at the bar and was now drenched from head to toe. His boots were full of water and his socks made a disgusting smushing sound as he stumbled down the street towards home._

_He opened the apartment building's door, his boots tracking water and mud up the three flights of stairs to the apartment he shared with Jackie._

_She was waiting for him when he came in. Sitting in the dark. He flipped the light on and she startled him._

_"Steven?" Jackie's face morphed from worry to relief. She jumped from the couch, already reaching for him. "What happened, I was so worried. Are you hurt? Let me look! Did you crash? It's pouring buckets out there. Why didn't you wait it out? Wait, where's your coat?"_

_He tried to keep her hands from running up his arms, over his face, searching for any signs of injury. He couldn't seem to keep all her hands off of him. They doubled and trippled as she checked him over and he couldn't seem to grab any of them._

_"Jackie," He tried not to slur his words. To tip her off to the fact that he'd been waisting his cares away. "I'm fine."_

_She stopped, her expression now one of irritation. "Is that liquor on your breath?" _

_He didn't reply, but that was all she needed to hear. "You said you quit drinking months ago." She took several steps away from him. "Do you know how scared and worried I was? I thought you were in an accident! You haven't called me all day, Steven!"_

_"I forgot, okay? No big deal."_

_"No big deal? Steven, you're drunk at 3:00 A.M. on a Tuesday night! You walked home in freezing rain with nothing but a t-shirt on! You—you—UGH!"_

_She began pacing back and forth in front of him. He wanted to tell her to stop, she was making him dizzy. "Can you cut that crap out?"_

_She came back to him, sticking a shaking finger in his face. "No! No! You don't get to get angry at me. You're a freaking alcoholic, Steven! You know, you said you'd never be her, but you turned out just like your moth—!"_

_ **SLAP!** _

_She stumbled away from him, holding her cheek._

_He didn't realize what he did till the pounding in his ears subsided, till his hand started buzzing, till his eyes registered Jackie's tears._

_She had backed far away from him, back to the corner of their small living room, pressing herself up against the intersecting walls._

_He'd hit her._

_"Jackie, I'm sorry." He started towards her, arms outstretched to pull her to him. But she began to cry harder, sobs echoing in the small room._

_"Please, please. Get away!" One hand was outstretched, desperatly trying to keep him away from her, the other clutched her cheek._

_"No, I didn't mean to." He pleaded with her. Still following her as she desperatly tried to push herself deeper into the corner._

_"Get away!" She shrieked. "Hyde, get away!"_

_He finally stopped. Hands falling to his sides, eyes trained on the shaggy carpet as water still dripped from him. He'd forgot he was wet._

_She hadn't called him by his last name in a very, very long time. The name sounded foreign and it sent a clear message. Don't touch me. _

_"I'm sorry..." He whispered, but no reply came. He looked up, vision blurry with tears. She was gone. The apartment door hung open, she hadn't bothered to close it when she fled. _

* * *

__Hyde sprang from the bed, tears tracking down his cheeks. He didn't bother wiping them away as he dashed twards the bathroom door, already feeling the bile rise in his throat. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this was supposed to only be two chapters but it ended up three. Here you go, the ending. Hope you like.

Jackie always knew Steven couldn't really sleep all that well. He'd have bad dreams and he'd get up in the night and take a walk.

He would try deaspratly not to wake her, but she would wake when he did. The jerk of his body as he shot from the bed would cause a small earth quake on their mattress, but she didn't mind.

Some nightmares were worse than others. 

She would wake for all of them, but never tell him so. She knew he would clam up, tell her they were no big deal, and tell her to go back to sleep. 

She knew they were a bigger deal than he let on, but she didn't intervene, until he shot from the bed in the middle of the night, so quickly and so abruptly she nearly fell off the bed. She couldn't stop herself from calling out a confused and consurned "Steven?" 

He tore into the bathroom, one hand clutching at his mouth as he did. His socks sliding dangerously on the wood floor. 

She sat in bed, hair frizzy and tangled in front of her face, until she heard the sounds of him heaving into the toilet. 

She stood, slipping her slippers onto her feet and her glasses onto her nose. She had developed her father's lack of 20/20 vision, annoying for situations that required haste.

She walked into the bathroom. Steven had stopped throwing up, but dry heaves kept him perched over the toilet. 

"Hey, Puddin'," She said softly, kneeling down beside him as she rubbed his back. "You okay?" 

He didn't respond, his face still planted in the toilet. 

"I'm gonna get you a glass of water, okay?" There was once a time when she would have refused to even come into the same room as throw up, but that was a long time ago. "I'll he back in a couple of minutes." 

She stood to leave, but Steven grasped her wrist tightly. Shaking his head he mumbled, "Please don't leave me again." 

She wasn't sure what he meant by "again" but she nodded none the less. "Okay, baby. She stood, moving to the sink. "Water from the faucet okay?"

He didn't reply again, but she took it as a sign. She didn't really know how to act when Steven felt sick or particularly upset. It broke her heart seeing him like this.

Opening the cabinet above their sink she pulled out a small paper cup and filled it with water. 

She handed it to him and he took in a huge gulp, swished it around and spit it into the toilet. He drank the rest, his swallows audible in the quiet bathroom. 

"Thanks," he crumpled the cup and threw it into the trashcan beside him. He flushed the toilet, the sound loud and jarring campared to the silence before it, and turned away, resting his head against the sink's wooden stand. Can we go back to bed now?" 

A sad smile rose on Jackie's lips. "Sure Puddin'." She tussled his curly hair, grabbing the small trashcan as she went, just in case he felt sick again. 

They climbed back into bed, and like every nightmare before, Steven hooked an arm around her waist and pulled her into him, nose buried into her hair. 

"You wanna talk about it?" She rested her hands atop his, intertwining their fingers. She instantly regretting asking. Steven didn't like to talk about his feelings, but this nightmare seemed worse than the others. 

There was a long silence following her question, so long she assumed he had gone back to sleep. "I don't want to hurt you." He whispered.

She wasn't sure if she heard him correctly, he was so quiet, his voice gravelly and thick with sadness. She gave his hand a gental squeeze. 

"My mom hurt me when she got mad or drunk, and I don't want to hurt you." 

She turned in his arms cupping his cheeks in her hands. "Steven you aren't your mother, okay? You're _nothing _like Edna or Bud or any of your family, okay? "You're a good person." 

He nodded tears streaming down his cheeks. _Steven Hyde crying? What did he dream about? _Jackie wondered. 

She wiped the tears away and wrapped her arms protectivly around Steven's middle, tucking her head under his chin. She tangled their feet together as his fingers travelled lazily through her hair. 

He began humming a tune that seemed familiar, but Jackie couldn't place it. 

"You are my Sunshine," He sang in a whisper, his voice off key and gruff. He pressed a kiss to her hair.

"You are my Sunshine." Another kiss to her head. "You make me happy when sky's are gray."

His voice grew sad as if he was about to cry again "You'll never know dear, how much I love you, please don't take my Sunshine away." He wrapped his arms around her, hugging her even closer. 

She knew he liked that song, sang it often while in the kitchen. Drunkenly sang it when she would have to come pick him up after hanging out with his friends. Loudly exclaiming "It's my Sunshine!" 

She liked it when he sang that song to her, liked the song all that much more. She realised that the song worked for both happy and sad moments throughout Steven's life. Maybe that was why he liked singing it so much. 

She cuddled into him a bit more and sighed contentedly. She wasn't sure how to make Steven's nightmares go away, but right now he seemed better. And that was all that really mattered. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So my first posted fanfic ever. Let me know what you thought or if I misspelled anything or messed something up. Thanks for reading.


End file.
